Elizabeth Peters: A River in the Sky

“Well,” she declared, “I don’t really give a curse about the Ark of the Covenant or Major Morley. I am worried about Ramses. You know how he-”

“Yes,” I said, with a sigh. “I do know.”

“I am going to write to him at once.” Nefret’s chin set in an expression I knew only too well. “And demand that he reply by return mail.”

“That may take weeks,” I said.

“Then the sooner someone gets at it, the better.”

She closed the door behind her with ominous softness.

“Now then,” I said, fixing Emerson with a stern look. “Out with it. You have not told me everything.”

“I didn’t want Nefret to hear.”

“Why not?”

Emerson got up from his desk and tiptoed to the door. That is to say, he was under the impression that he was tiptoeing. Seizing the handle, he flung the door open, peered suspiciously into the hall, and closed the door before returning to his chair.

“What you know of the matter thus far, Peabody, might be deduced by any informed person. What I am about to tell you is a state secret, known only to a few. It must go no further.”

Emerson’s is not a countenance that lends itself to deception. The furrowing of his noble brow, the slight compression of his well-cut lips, and, most particularly, the movement of his hand to his chin, which he is wont to stroke when in thought, indicated that he was in deadly earnest.

“You have my word, Emerson,” I replied, as earnestly. “And may I add that the confidence you have displayed in me…I will say no more.”

“Indeed?” The sobriety of Emerson’s countenance relaxed into a smile. “Well, my dear, I take you at your word. To answer your question: Morley is an additional complication to a witches’ brew of a situation. If he starts digging around the Temple Mount he is likely to stir up trouble with the Jews and the Moslems, both of whom consider that a holy site. Someone needs to keep an eye on him and try to prevent him from doing something stupid.”

“And that someone is you?”

“I have a legitimate excuse for protesting his activities, Peabody, on purely professional grounds. He’s bound to make a mess of the excavation, but until he does so there is no legal way of preventing him from going out there. What concerns the government is another matter entirely. The fact is, I spent only a few minutes with His Majesty. After the usual exchange of courtesies he left me to the Director of Military Intelligence and another individual, whose name was never mentioned.”

“How extraordinary.”

“It was a most extraordinary conversation, Peabody. These intelligence people-well, you know how they are, seeing plots and conspiracies all over the place. It seems there have been rumors of an uprising-not a violent affair like the Mahdist Revolt in the Sudan, but a carefully planned long-range project that may be years in the making. The object is the expulsion of foreigners from the Middle East and the creation of an Islamic state in Syria-Palestine.”

“Expulsion?” I repeated. “That is a rather tame word. Are you talking about a jihad?”

“It may come to that eventually, Peabody. At the present time, military intelligence is chiefly concerned with the part Germany is playing in the region. It has been ten years since the All-Highest, as his fawning subjects call the Kaiser, visited Damascus and Jerusalem and declared himself the defender of Islam. The Turks aren’t naive enough to believe his high-flown rhetoric, but they will use him to serve their own purposes. German agents are swarming all over the region, thinly disguised as explorers, engineers-”

“And archaeologists?”

Emerson nodded, and I exclaimed, “We are doing the same, of course. Archaeologists make excellent spies. Please don’t tell me that George Reisner is secretly working for British intelligence.”

“Then I won’t. Come now, Peabody. In the first place, Reisner is American, with no loyalties to Britain. In the second place, he is the least likely individual of my acquaintance to let politics distract him from his work. Speaking of distraction, Peabody, you’ve done it again. Do you want to know why the War Office is interested in Major Morley?”

“I suppose they suspect him of being a German spy,” I said with a sniff.

Emerson’s superior smile vanished. “Curse it, Peabody, how did you know that?”

“Logical deduction, Emerson. The War Office instigated Morley’s visit to us; the War Office doesn’t give a curse about inept excavations; the War Office is obsessed with spies; ergo, the War Office suspects Morley of being one. A spy, that is to say. Utter nonsense, of course. I trust you informed them to that effect?”

“I haven’t had a chance to do so as yet. I had planned to go up to London tomorrow.”

“I will go with you.”

“You have not been invited, Peabody.”

“Nevertheless, I will go.”

“Logical deduction informed me that you would say so,” said Emerson.

WE CAUGHT AN EARLY TRAIN next morning. Finding ourselves alone in a first-class carriage, Emerson took advantage of the opportunity to explain to me the organization of the military intelligence services, and the meaning of various confusing initials. The DMO was the Director of Military Operations, which had, at the present time, several subsidiary branches. MO2 was the branch assigned to cover Europe and the Ottoman Empire, and the only one that concerned us. Emerson would have gone on to tell me about the other branches, but fortunately several passengers got into the carriage at our next stop and refused to listen to Emerson’s strong hints that they go away. In fact I had heard all I needed to hear. Men like to create unnecessary organizations and give them impressive or mysterious names; this usually ends in increased confusion, and should therefore be ignored.

The new War Office building was on an imposing height in Whitehall, across from the old Admiralty. Emerson was expected, for he had telegraphed earlier. I was not expected. There was some little discussion, which I ignored. I had worn my second-best summer hat, trimmed with roses, and a new costume of crimson silk (crimson being Emerson’s favorite color), and I suppose I made a rather unusual figure in that bastion of male supremacy. The men, even the clerks, might have ordered their somber black suits and their gray cravats from the same tailor and haberdasher.

Since Emerson refused to budge a step without me, MO2, and even the DMO, were forced to concede. An extremely nervous young person escorted us to an impressive office on the second floor, where we were met by an equally nervous young secretary. He began twittering at us but was almost instantaneously replaced by the DMO himself, General David Spencer, who came bursting out of his office.

“Mrs. Emerson, I presume,” he said, with a (very) slight bow. “I was not expecting you.”

I studied him with some interest, since I had never met a DMO before. A long, sagging chin was more or less balanced by an unusually high forehead. Under heavy brows a pair of muddy brown eyes regarded me without plea sure.

“I believe I can provide a useful viewpoint,” I explained, switching my parasol from my right hand to my left and offering the former. “I felt it my duty as a loyal servant of the Crown to be present.”

A poorly suppressed gurgle of amusement from Emerson rather destroyed the solemnity of my statement and wrung a critical look from Spencer.

“Come in, then,” he said grudgingly.

There was another person in the office, a slight, unimposing young man with protuberant blue eyes and a brown mustache. He rose when I entered and politely held a chair for me. I assumed he was the unnamed gentleman to whom Emerson had referred. By that time I had become a trifle impatient with unnecessary mystery, so I introduced myself.